by jimwalton » Sun May 06, 2018 3:56 pm
Great thoughts. Yeah, the terminology can be confusing, especially since we approach texts thinking like 21st century Westerners, and they wrote the text thinking like, say, 1300 BC Mid-Easterners. Their whole mindset and worldview are different than ours.
The text does indeed say that the serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made, but remember in their culture a serpent was often thought of as a creature having spiritual characteristics. Our mind defaults to reptiles; their minds defaulted to spiritual connections. Our minds just don't work that way. Also, as I think I mentioned, in their mindset serpents were chaos creatures from the non-ordered realm. Nothing about this is anything we think about. We think in categories of science, taxonomy, etc.; they thought in terms of order, non-order, and disorder. Whatever. It's a completely different worldview. So when we see the word "snake", we think reptile. When they saw the word "snake," sure, they thought of reptiles also, but of so many other things in addition. The text tells us he was shrewd (crafty, cunning), but it doesn't say he is sinister or evil. He doesn't become associated with evil until much later (New Testament times). The text also doesn't offer the slightest hint that the serpent was either identified as or inspired by Satan. There may be good reason eventually to connect him to Satan, but the OT never makes that connection.
Yes, he was using God's words to manipulate and deceive Eve. He suggests doubt. He suggests God may not have her best in view. He suggests that death is maybe not such an immediate threat. In effect, he doesn't really actually contradict God, but rather only suggests that there is nothing to worry about. He is deceiving her into thinking that the knowledge of God can be had through her own choices and self—that God isn't the only supplier of such knowledge.
While it doesn't give us a whole lot of background and information on the serpent, it gives us a bucketload on humanity. Our basic problem is positing ourselves as the center and source of order (remember, this is what the ancients cared about). In taking from the tree, A&E are trying to set themselves up as a satellite center of wisdom apart from God. "I can do it myself." "I want to do it my way." It's not so much a rejection of God, but rather an insistence on independence. The consequence was not order centered on them, as they possibly assumed, but disorder as the result, and life in God's presence was forfeited.
Wisdom is good. God never intended to withhold it from humanity. But true wisdom must be acquired through a process, generally from someone else who is wise. The fall is defined by A&E trying to acquire wisdom illegitimately—through their own actions. They were trying to take God's role for themselves (to be like God, but via the wrong path). Instead of joining God in his role as they were taught wisdom, they tried to grab it all for themselves. As it turns out, it is the quintessential problem of the human condition.
> Faith is by believing not by seeing.
I define faith as making an assumption of truth based on enough evidence to warrant making that assumption. I believe faith is evidentiary. You may want to poke around a little bit in the faith category of this website to read some of what I've written, but you'll find out pretty quickly that i believe faith is based on evidence, that faith is not blind, that faith is not "believing something contrary to evidence" (as some define it), or that faith is believing things we can't possibly know.
> In the 1st chapter of Genesis my Bible says that God created human beings in his own image, then God blessed them told them to "be fruitful and multiply". BUT after it explained how he created Adam and Eve. Confused by this...
Again, as you poke around the "Creation" category of this site, you'll see that i believe Genesis 1 & 2 are an account of how God created the cosmos to function, not how it came into existence. In the ancient world, things existed when they had a function. If Genesis 1 were about material creation, we would expect it to start with nothing. If it were about giving it a function, we would expect it to start as "without form and void." So Genesis 1 is about how light and dark function in repeated cycles to give us time, how the firmament functions to give us weather and climate, how the earth functions to bring forth vegetation, how the sun moon & stars functions to give us seasons, and how humans function to rule the earth and subdue it.
Genesis 2, then is also about function, not material creation. It's not about how A&E came to be, but specifically what their role and function is. First they are equally in God's image (1.26), they equally function to rule the earth and subdue it (1.26-28), and chapter 2 tells us that they equally function as God's priest and priestess (2.15: "Work it and care for it" are priestly words, not agriculture ones. (See how our minds default to 21st century mentality rather than to a 14th c. BC worldview?) In Genesis 2 God is letting us know that the man and woman are equal in their function to rule, subdue, and mediate before God. The end of chapter 2 tells us that the man sees the woman as his equal (bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh), and the two are like one; they are each other's kinship partner. The word that is used of the woman is "helpmeet" or, like "counter partner." It's a compound word made up of words that are used elsewhere in the OT of God in his relationship to Israel, so we can't possibly say it means subordinate or a lesser being.
We shouldn't take these things chronologically. It's a temple text, telling us how God ordered the cosmos to function as his temple. The 7 days are the 7 days of temple dedication (all the temples of the ancient world were dedicated in a 7-day ceremony, using the 7 days to declare the wonders of their deity, and on the 7th day the deity would come to rest in the temple that was made, meaning that he would come to live with his people and engage in their daily lives with them. That's what this is. It's not scientific chronology or 7 days of material manufacture.
> I know that when God refers to "like us" He is referencing Jesus (as I was taught)
Probably not. Moses was not aware of a trinity. The "our" image of Gn. 1.26 probably refers to what the ancients called a divine council. God was surrounded by other spiritual beings. Here God is viewed as engaging them and counseling with them. none of them are on par with God, certainly, or even close, but that is likely who the "us" is.
> does God have a Father? Brother? Sister?
No, no, and no. God is a Trinity, but He is one. No other gods. He is without origin, without lineage, without siblings.
> Is it possible that there was something that creaated Him?
No. God is often spoken of in the Bible as eternal, uncreated, and without Causality (nothing brought him into being). He is the First Cause.
> Are there any tips or study techniques to help break this book down so I can actually remember and learn.
I found it helpful to think of Genesis in terms of themes, not just narrative. While there is a historic flow in Genesis from Adam to Joseph (and I believe they are all historic people), the text comes alive to me not just in reading the stories (though they are good stories), but to read them for what they are trying to teach us:
ORDER: How God is ordering the world to function as His temple and humanity as his priests and priestesses
RELATIONSHIP: How strongly God desires a love relationship with us.
BLESSING: God's desire is to bless us.
REVELATION: God's desire is to reveal himself to us.
SIN: Sin has messed up our function, our relationship, our blessing, and even causes us to misconstrue God's revelation.
COVENANT: God enacts several covenants to reveal himself and to establish relationship
THE LAND: The land becomes a symbol almost all of the above.
GOD'S KINGDOM BUILDING PROGRAM: God is determined to establish His kingdom made up of His people based on a love relationship.
PRESENCE: What was lost at Eden was God's presence. The covenant is God's mechanism to reestablish His presence on earth and among his people.
REDEMPTION: God has a plan to redeem all of humankind's sin to establish relationship with them.
RESURRECTION: The narrative is filled with images of resurrection (after the Flood, Sarah's womb, Rebekah's womb, Rachel's womb, Isaac after his "sacrifice," Joseph, etc.) to give us a preview of the Messiah to come.
FAITH & FAITHLESSNESS: The book outlines two kinds of people, and shows us the consequences of each type.
I find that if I read each story looking for these thematic threads I get more out of it.
> So we never really find out how the evil one became the evil one?
Right. We are simply not told, despite that we are dying of curiosity to know.
> But if God didn't create evil, then what did?
We did. Romans 5 tells us that sin came into the world because of us.
> The world right now (to me) seems to be so out of balance, just like before the flood. Why wouldn't he intervene now?
Matthew 24.37 says, "As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man." Myself and many others are watching the signs and watching for the signs. Right now it's hard to tell how close it may be, but we stay alert.
Great thoughts. Yeah, the terminology can be confusing, especially since we approach texts thinking like 21st century Westerners, and they wrote the text thinking like, say, 1300 BC Mid-Easterners. Their whole mindset and worldview are different than ours.
The text does indeed say that the serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made, but remember in their culture a serpent was often thought of as a creature having spiritual characteristics. Our mind defaults to reptiles; their minds defaulted to spiritual connections. Our minds just don't work that way. Also, as I think I mentioned, in their mindset serpents were chaos creatures from the non-ordered realm. Nothing about this is anything we think about. We think in categories of science, taxonomy, etc.; they thought in terms of order, non-order, and disorder. Whatever. It's a completely different worldview. So when we see the word "snake", we think reptile. When they saw the word "snake," sure, they thought of reptiles also, but of so many other things in addition. The text tells us he was shrewd (crafty, cunning), but it doesn't say he is sinister or evil. He doesn't become associated with evil until much later (New Testament times). The text also doesn't offer the slightest hint that the serpent was either identified as or inspired by Satan. There may be good reason eventually to connect him to Satan, but the OT never makes that connection.
Yes, he was using God's words to manipulate and deceive Eve. He suggests doubt. He suggests God may not have her best in view. He suggests that death is maybe not such an immediate threat. In effect, he doesn't really actually contradict God, but rather only suggests that there is nothing to worry about. He is deceiving her into thinking that the knowledge of God can be had through her own choices and self—that God isn't the only supplier of such knowledge.
While it doesn't give us a whole lot of background and information on the serpent, it gives us a bucketload on humanity. Our basic problem is positing ourselves as the center and source of order (remember, this is what the ancients cared about). In taking from the tree, A&E are trying to set themselves up as a satellite center of wisdom apart from God. "I can do it myself." "I want to do it my way." It's not so much a rejection of God, but rather an insistence on independence. The consequence was not order centered on them, as they possibly assumed, but disorder as the result, and life in God's presence was forfeited.
Wisdom is good. God never intended to withhold it from humanity. But true wisdom must be acquired through a process, generally from someone else who is wise. The fall is defined by A&E trying to acquire wisdom illegitimately—through their own actions. They were trying to take God's role for themselves (to be like God, but via the wrong path). Instead of joining God in his role as they were taught wisdom, they tried to grab it all for themselves. As it turns out, it is the quintessential problem of the human condition.
> Faith is by believing not by seeing.
I define faith as making an assumption of truth based on enough evidence to warrant making that assumption. I believe faith is evidentiary. You may want to poke around a little bit in the faith category of this website to read some of what I've written, but you'll find out pretty quickly that i believe faith is based on evidence, that faith is not blind, that faith is not "believing something contrary to evidence" (as some define it), or that faith is believing things we can't possibly know.
> In the 1st chapter of Genesis my Bible says that God created human beings in his own image, then God blessed them told them to "be fruitful and multiply". BUT after it explained how he created Adam and Eve. Confused by this...
Again, as you poke around the "Creation" category of this site, you'll see that i believe Genesis 1 & 2 are an account of how God created the cosmos to function, not how it came into existence. In the ancient world, things existed when they had a function. If Genesis 1 were about material creation, we would expect it to start with nothing. If it were about giving it a function, we would expect it to start as "without form and void." So Genesis 1 is about how light and dark function in repeated cycles to give us time, how the firmament functions to give us weather and climate, how the earth functions to bring forth vegetation, how the sun moon & stars functions to give us seasons, and how humans function to rule the earth and subdue it.
Genesis 2, then is also about function, not material creation. It's not about how A&E came to be, but specifically what their role and function is. First they are equally in God's image (1.26), they equally function to rule the earth and subdue it (1.26-28), and chapter 2 tells us that they equally function as God's priest and priestess (2.15: "Work it and care for it" are priestly words, not agriculture ones. (See how our minds default to 21st century mentality rather than to a 14th c. BC worldview?) In Genesis 2 God is letting us know that the man and woman are equal in their function to rule, subdue, and mediate before God. The end of chapter 2 tells us that the man sees the woman as his equal (bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh), and the two are like one; they are each other's kinship partner. The word that is used of the woman is "helpmeet" or, like "counter partner." It's a compound word made up of words that are used elsewhere in the OT of God in his relationship to Israel, so we can't possibly say it means subordinate or a lesser being.
We shouldn't take these things chronologically. It's a temple text, telling us how God ordered the cosmos to function as his temple. The 7 days are the 7 days of temple dedication (all the temples of the ancient world were dedicated in a 7-day ceremony, using the 7 days to declare the wonders of their deity, and on the 7th day the deity would come to rest in the temple that was made, meaning that he would come to live with his people and engage in their daily lives with them. That's what this is. It's not scientific chronology or 7 days of material manufacture.
> I know that when God refers to "like us" He is referencing Jesus (as I was taught)
Probably not. Moses was not aware of a trinity. The "our" image of Gn. 1.26 probably refers to what the ancients called a divine council. God was surrounded by other spiritual beings. Here God is viewed as engaging them and counseling with them. none of them are on par with God, certainly, or even close, but that is likely who the "us" is.
> does God have a Father? Brother? Sister?
No, no, and no. God is a Trinity, but He is one. No other gods. He is without origin, without lineage, without siblings.
> Is it possible that there was something that creaated Him?
No. God is often spoken of in the Bible as eternal, uncreated, and without Causality (nothing brought him into being). He is the First Cause.
> Are there any tips or study techniques to help break this book down so I can actually remember and learn.
I found it helpful to think of Genesis in terms of themes, not just narrative. While there is a historic flow in Genesis from Adam to Joseph (and I believe they are all historic people), the text comes alive to me not just in reading the stories (though they are good stories), but to read them for what they are trying to teach us:
[list]ORDER: How God is ordering the world to function as His temple and humanity as his priests and priestesses
RELATIONSHIP: How strongly God desires a love relationship with us.
BLESSING: God's desire is to bless us.
REVELATION: God's desire is to reveal himself to us.
SIN: Sin has messed up our function, our relationship, our blessing, and even causes us to misconstrue God's revelation.
COVENANT: God enacts several covenants to reveal himself and to establish relationship
THE LAND: The land becomes a symbol almost all of the above.
GOD'S KINGDOM BUILDING PROGRAM: God is determined to establish His kingdom made up of His people based on a love relationship.
PRESENCE: What was lost at Eden was God's presence. The covenant is God's mechanism to reestablish His presence on earth and among his people.
REDEMPTION: God has a plan to redeem all of humankind's sin to establish relationship with them.
RESURRECTION: The narrative is filled with images of resurrection (after the Flood, Sarah's womb, Rebekah's womb, Rachel's womb, Isaac after his "sacrifice," Joseph, etc.) to give us a preview of the Messiah to come.
FAITH & FAITHLESSNESS: The book outlines two kinds of people, and shows us the consequences of each type.[/list]
I find that if I read each story looking for these thematic threads I get more out of it.
> So we never really find out how the evil one became the evil one?
Right. We are simply not told, despite that we are dying of curiosity to know.
> But if God didn't create evil, then what did?
We did. Romans 5 tells us that sin came into the world because of us.
> The world right now (to me) seems to be so out of balance, just like before the flood. Why wouldn't he intervene now?
Matthew 24.37 says, "As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man." Myself and many others are watching the signs and watching for the signs. Right now it's hard to tell how close it may be, but we stay alert.